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The CP and Industrial
Militancy, 1964-1974
It is now almost a quarter of a century since the industrial militancy of the 1960s and 1970s began to subside in the face of the demise of the post-war boom, redundancies and factory closures, and the 'social contract' of Harold Wilson's 1974 Labour government. Time enough, perhaps, to at least begin to reconsider historically what was a unique and intriguing phenomenon in the decades since 1914. Assessed soberly, it was associated with a significant increase in union membership and density; important breakthroughs in recruiting women members and white collar workers; the extension of workplace organisation and industrial action to the public sector; the development of struggles amongst black workers; a strike wave marked by membership insurgency and the rediscovery of mass and flying pickets as well as new tactics such as factory occupations and work-ins; and the revival of the political strike against incomes policy and anti-union legislation.
The importance of what was then termed the 'new militancy' to industrial politics and to a labour historiography in which key figures judged 'the forward march of labour' to have been halted almost two decades earlier appears incontestable. Royden Harrison suggested: 'The labour unrest of 1970-74 was far more massive and incomparably more successful than its predecessor of 1910-14'. [1] Others saw the period as important in delivering limited gains in class consciousness. [2] Even Eric Hobsbawm interrupted his strictures on economism in the post-war years to enter the significant qualification 'with the exception of the great struggles of 1970-74'. [3] Eric might well have added 'and the struggles in 1969 against In Place of Strife'. He might have supplemented his delineation of the secular decline of Labour's role with the observation 'with the exception of 1966', when, of course, the Party polled a percentage of the vote as great as in 1945 and insignificantly less than at 'the climax of labourism' in 1951. If we are to begin to take the historical measure of the militancy we need to examine at the least the decade after 1964 rather than simply characterise it as a phenomenon of the early 1970s.
Recent work has not added significantly to earlier studies. Robert Taylor's survey of unions and politics since 1945, for example, was commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary British History. It presents a competent, well-rehearsed account of these years, but his focus (in common with much of the research associated with the Institute) is largely 'top-down'. It is almost completely dependent on secondary sources and scarcely takes forward the necessary historical tasks of interviewing protagonists and examining the documentary resources that are already available. Discussion of the roots of the militancy is limited to brief references to inflation, taxation policies and 'the spirit of 1968'. The book has little to say about the development of militancy: there is one sentence on the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions (LCDTU) and nothing about the Communist Party. Taylor views the period somewhat one-sidedly as a time in which 'self-regarding sectionalism gathered pace with the erosion of notions of solidarity' and chides leaders like Jack Jones for his alleged failure to understand 'the resurgence of old style, acquisitive sectionalism'. [4]
More rigorous analysis is required with more detailed examination and explanation of developments amongst activists, in the workplace and in the unions, to complement the present pervasive emphasis on high politics and semi-automatic responses from below. We need to re-scrutinise earlier work on causation which suggested that inflation and state intervention centred on incomes policy had disturbed differentials, increased the transparency of wage determination and extended orbits of comparison within the working class. Most conventional industrial relations literature on these topics remains resolutely ahistorical. One serious attempt at historical study — the collection of essays edited by Terry and Edwards on shopfloor organisation in the West Midlands engineering industry in the post-war period — nevertheless is 'factory bound' and concentrates on the labour process to the neglect of politics. Although the editors acknowledge that 'in a desire to refute Cold War allegations of Communist agitation, academic analyses for many years shrank from acknowledging the importance of activists', they conclude that their 'case studies give no indication of Communist Party influence'. [5] In fact the essay by Steve Jefferys on Longbridge briefly acknowledges in its conclusion the role of around 20 CP shop stewards in building up shop floor organisation in the plant from the 1940s to the 1960s, but this issue is not centrally addressed in the body of his text. [6]
The question of politics inside the unions at the local and district, as well as national, levels has generally been neglected. The growth of militancy is often noted in terms of the rise to leadership of Lawrence Daly (NUM), Hugh Scanlon (AEU) and Jack Jones (TGWU) and their political stances in relation to state policy. The internal political processes which produced this ascendancy, the internal interests they served, the internal political problems they negotiated, the existence of independent political bases inside the unions, go largely unanalysed. Similarly, there is little published work concerning the development of Broad Lefts and 'rank and file' organisations during this period, the trajectory of shop steward politics and the role of the Communist Party (CP) and other left groups in the unions.
The growth of a strain of political, solidaristic militancy which climaxed in the 1972 miners' strike and the campaign against the Industrial Relations Act seems to us to be of as great importance, and as deserving of analysis, as the commonly identified tendencies towards economism and sectionalism. In our research, we are seeking to examine the campaigns against the anti-union legislation of 1969-74 in their wider contexts. We want to explore in more detail the nature of the opposition within the unions, how it was constructed, the key factors which drove it and the agency of those who sought to broaden and politicise it.
There is little in the literature about the dynamics of how grievance over and opposition to state intervention and legislation emerged, how they were focused at the workplace and within union structures, and how they were translated into defiance. There is little about how those struggles which began briefly to transcend the sectionalism by which the period is so often characterised were generated. Describing the 1972 strikes in solidarity with the dockers imprisoned in Pentonville a few years later, the then General Secretary of the CP wrote: 'Within hours, tens of thousands downed tools, within a day the number rose to thousands. The strikes snowballed. Rank and file pressure for industrial action became irresistible'. [7] What is missing, if we reject spontaneism as an explanation, is any analysis of how, by whom, and where strike action was built, and where and why it wasn't.
Further attention is needed to the decline in militancy from the 1970s and its consequences. The relationship of industrial militancy and political change remains an unresolved issue in socialist analysis. We need to address again how the direct action which contributed to the downfall of the Heath government was followed in February 1974 by the lowest Labour vote since before the war and was accompanied by decline in the membership of the CP and insignificant growth in the membership of other left groupings. Debate as to whether the downturn in militancy could be explained by the 'bureaucratisation' of workplace organisation or by broader political factors has also been mothballed. Yet as with other issues raised by the labour unrest of the 1960s and 1970s, it is important to an understanding of post-war politics more generally and to contemporary prognoses of trade union renewal.
The CP had no doubt as to the significance of the period:
'... the crisis of British capitalism extended and political consciousness amongst the working class grew. The class struggle reached an intensity beyond anything experienced in the post-war period if not in the entire history of British trade unionism'. [8]
The CP played an important role, although most accounts of its work in the unions during this period are fragmentary and impressionistic. For Francis Beckett, the 1960s and 1970s were the CP's 'best days' in the industrial field, a time when its influence in the unions was stronger than it had ever been. [9]
In unions such as the TGWU and the NUM, the Party wielded significant influence with its supporters constituting around a quarter of the national executive. In the AEU, it was strong at shop steward and district committee level, as well possessing representation on the small executive, and dominated TASS, the technical and supervisory section. Party members were entrenched in the leadership of smaller organisations such as the Sheet Metal Workers, the Constructional Engineering Union (federated with the AEU) and the Tobacco Workers. Direct influence was also increasing in the growing white collar unions such as ASTMS and NUT. The Party had either maintained, or in some cases developed, strong regional bases, notably amongst engineering workers in North London, Manchester, Sheffield and the West of Scotland, miners in Scotland, South Wales, Kent and, more recently, Yorkshire. There was a flowering of 'Broad Left' groups dominated by the Party, particularly in the AEU, TASS, ETU and UCATT, working around papers such as Engineering Voice, Flashlight, and the Power Worker.
The Party's industrial base, in specific regions and unions, was therefore still impressive. Its network of shop stewards meant it was able to lead or strongly influence important rank and file struggles, from the Roberts-Arundel strike in 1966 which was often seen as heralding the new militancy, to the work-in at UCS which symbolised its insurgent and confident mood. That two of the 'Pentonville Five' and one of the 'Shrewsbury Three' were CP members was only symbolic of the wider role played by the Party in hundreds of lesser disputes during these years. How factory branches operated remains unclear. Conferences in the 1960s reaffirmed their strategic importance but characterised them as a 'weak link' in the Party's work.
Nonetheless, the CP's direct influence in the high union politics to which it aspired was limited: Ken Gill was its sole representative on the TUC General Council. It sought to wield influence indirectly through its relationship with left-leaning, 'progressive' union leaders, a broad and porous category which included not only Jones and Scanlon but middle of the road elements such as Harry Urwin, Marie Patterson and Lord Briginshaw. Some writers, notably Willie Thompson, have stressed the fragility of Party power in the unions. It was, in his view, purchased at the price of a 'left unity' which compromised independence; it was based upon 'anodyne blandness and diplomatic evasion', and a determination to follow events and leaders rather than take political initiatives. [10] The influence of the CP's trade union Advisory Committees seems to have been small, even in relation to leading members such as Will Paynter, Eddie Marsden and Ken Gill — all of whom were at one time or another criticised by Party members for the positions they took on industrial issues. Some felt that the leading trade unionists 'had more input into the Party than the Party had into them'. [11]
Raphael Samuel has taken this point further, seeing in this period 'a retreat into trade unionism' and a 'flowering of workerism':
Industrial comrades were no longer obliged to show themselves 'politically active' by turning up at rallies and demonstrations or 'politically educated' by putting themselves through Party schools. The factory branches concentrated on more immediate questions — measured day work, for example, or productivity bargaining ... Membership drives were discontinued. Lunch-time propaganda meetings disappeared. Daily Worker sales dwindled. At best the factory comrades formed militant industrial mafias ... at worst they functioned as trade union electoral machines. [12]
This privileging of the industrial over the political is seen as bearing an industrial practice which in comparison with the trade union work of earlier generations of CP militants was circumscribed and depoliticised. In consequence, CP militants were assimilated to the ranks of trade union officialdom. The question of whether there was a marked change requires further investigation: certainly assimilation to officialdom had been under way since the 1930s, even if disrupted by the Cold War, and a tendency towards disjunction between industrial and political activities by CP members was visible throughout the post-war period. [13] Samuel seems on firmer ground when he argues that the way trade union work was conducted played a role in the later paralysing outbreaks of inner party conflict.
It seems unquestionable that primacy should have been given to the development and politicisation of militant trade unionism in this period, for it constituted the central dynamic of working class activity. Whether the approaches taken were the right ones is a more contentious issue. The major instrument of co-ordinating opposition to anti-union legislation was the LCDTU, established as a 'lobby organising committee' in 1966 with Jim Hiles as secretary and Kevin Halpin as chair, and sponsored by some 20 organisations, largely shop stewards' committees. It was supported by an increasing range of trade union bodies and came into its own from 1968, organising one day strikes against In Place of Strife in February and May 1969 and against the Industrial Relations Bill in December 1970. The LCDTU held a series of major conferences, with up to 1,500 delegates in attendance and a range of nationally known speakers such as Ray Buckton (ASLEF), Bill Keyes (SOGAT) and left MPs, which stimulated opposition to the legislation and to Heath's incomes policies. It provided a focus for opposition and a forum for disseminating CP policy. It was never intended to constitute a 'rank and file committee', a left-wing organising centre in the unions, nor a sustained democratic network of militants counterposed to the existing hierarchy. It never possessed any local organisation and its political programme reflected official union policies. It was criticised on these grounds from the left. Its parameters were essentially those of a Party policy which continued in the main to oppose 'rank and fileism' in favour of pressure on the official leadership, union electoralism and winning positions:
Militant struggles from below, far from creating difficulties for the official leaderships of unions, is of positive assistance to those trade union leaders who are actively fighting to advance the interests of their members. Such militancy and action by the membership strengthens the bargaining position of the official negotiators. Without such militancy and action, the left wing members on the Union Executives and the General Council of the TUC could never have shifted the Executives and the General Council itself to build the campaign which compelled the government to withdraw In Place of Strife. [14]
In the new conditions after 1974, the union lefts' support of the 'social contract' exposed the limitations of CP policy and contributed to the Party's internal problems.
Given the cursory and often anecdotal nature of commentaries on the Party's industrial work in the 1960s and 1970s, there is a need for more detailed studies of how the CP's trade union interventions were organised; of the relationships between union activists and the Party, and between rank and file CP members and the Party's political and industrial leadership; the role of the Party in different unions; the relationship between the Party and the Broad Lefts; and the role which the LCDTU — described by Thompson as 'a substantial achievement' — played in organising and extending militant campaigns. We also need to explore why the Party did not grow in what seemed to be promising conditions.
Our research aims to produce papers which address several of the themes touched on above: the dynamics of workplace militancy, the question of 'rank and file movements' in the unions, and the role played by the CP in these. Within the Party archives, there are a number of sources for such a study, although the material is often scattered and fragmentary. The minutes of the Political and National Executive Committees for the period contain some relevant material on national policy but they are often terse and compressed. The industrial department's files contain more detailed information though it is rarely comprehensive: for example, a file of miscellaneous leaflets, press cuttings and occasionally minutes of trade union meetings relates to the 1960s (Archive reference: CP/CENT/IND/1/3). A more useful file (CP/CENT/IND/1/2) provides details of factory branch organisation in the 1960s which permits us to trace the declining geography of the Party's industrial strength: at a national conference on factory branches in June 1966, 222 factory branches with 2,799 members were reported, a drop from the 265 such branches covering 3,249 members in 1963. Although the conference adopted the goal of forming 50 new factory branches by the end of the year, a report by Peter Kerrigan to the Executive Committee in March 1968 indicated that the total then stood at only 213, of which 34 were not functioning. There are industrial files in the papers of George Matthews which contain some materials on 'national meetings' of members in particular unions but there does not appear to be any systematic runs of minutes of the various advisory committees.
CP District records are of varying detail: the West Midlands district file for the period 1945-76 (CP/CENT/ORG/5/2) contains some reports to the centre which make occasional reference to industrial matters, one of which is relevant to Samuel's analysis cited above: 'we have many comrades prominent in their [i.e.carworkers'] leadership. Yet there is an outstanding gap between our influence and standing, and our actual party membership and our number and strength in the motor industry'. [15] The file for the North West District (which included the industrial strongholds of Manchester and Merseyside) for 1969-75 (CP/CENT/ORG/6/8) has even less material on trade union matters. While there is a good run of Secretariat and District Committee minutes, those of the District Committee's Industrial Sub-Committee are absent.
Although there is a small file on the LCDTU (CP/ORG/MISC/LCDTU), it contains circulars relating only to the period 1976-80. There are in the Matthews papers scattered LCDTU circulars and conference reports but these are far from comprehensive. We are in the course of collating LCDTU material from other sources and will eventually lodge this in the archive to supplement the existing files. We would appeal to any readers who have any similar LCDTU documents to deposit them in the Party archive or to allow us access to photocopies (for which we are willing to pay the cost). The same appeal (and offer) applies to other documents relevant to industrial branches, national advisory committees and 'Broad Lefts'. We would also like information from any members of the Communist Historians' Network on the availability of tapes of interviews or transcripts relevant to the topics discussed here. Finally, we would welcome contact with Party trade union activists who were involved in the LCDTU. If the kind of history 'from below' of the militancy of 1964-74 for which we have argued above is to be written, it will not be solely, or even mainly, based on the sources currently available in the Party archive, invaluable though they are.
